Spring (Pat)!!

[spring]

Thursday, March 6th: Antigua

We pulled into port on a bright sunny morning right next to a Celebrity ship. At the end of the dock are brightly colored stores. It looks very appealing. As soon as the ship cleared, we got off the ship and went right into the town. After looking around a bit, we decided to take a taxi tour again. The first driver we came upon gave us a reasonable price, brought us over to the side while he tried to talk others into joining us in the van. However, these people he was talking to decided they wanted a taxi to the beach. Remembering our experience in St. Thomas, we bailed out. We eventually found another taxi driver further in town. He had 3 Canadian couples and wanted the 3 of us to join them - same tour, same price. They seemed like really nice people, so we jumped into the van. He actually took us on a really nice tour of the island, stopping in a place called Nelson's Dockyard. The British Army had a long history in this area on the Southern Coast of Antigua. It had lots of old buildings and..........gift shops! NaNa was delighted. We had a short guided tour, then were on our own for 1/2 hour. When our time was about up, we went out into the parking lot looking for our van. Honestly, there must have been 20 or more of them parked there and they all looked alike! As we were poking through the parking lot, a lady in a jeep suddenly shot by us. "Bloody Tourists," she screamed. We yelled back our thanks before realizing she was not yelling at us, but was frustrated with the vans taking up all the parking spots. We got a good laugh out of our ruffled British "friend." We finally found the van and the rest of our party, then it was off for more sightseeing. Antigua is also beautiful, but my heart still belongs to Barbados. 3 1/2 hours later, we finally rolled back into town. We got a great tour, but it was much longer than anyone of us had patience for. We climbed back onboard the ship and (again) had lunch. After lunch, NaNa wanted to go back in town to try her hand in a casino she saw close to the dock. DH decided to stay behind and take a nap. The casino was very dingy and had older models of slot machines. NaNa had a little bit of luck while I just donated to the cause, like usual. NaNa was excited because it was the first time she ever played in a casino on foreign soil.

After our casino adventure, we stopped at every souvenir shop, courtesy of NaNa. Amazingly, she didn't buy anything here! Eventually, hot and tired, she decided it was time to get back on the ship and have an ice cream cone.
I abstained because dinner was just in two hours.

We went through our usual routine of getting showered and dressed for dinner. It was one more night that I didn't like my dinner and disliked dessert. I spent more time picking at my food the whole cruise, and I am not at all like that. I eat quite a variety of foods, but I just didn't like meat that was hard to chew, cakes that were dry, and cheesecake that didn't taste like cheesecake at all. Picky, picky, I guess. At least I didn't gain any weight during the cruise - that's good!

There was another singer and dancer show on this night which we were looking forward to seeing. This was our 2nd big production show we'd gone to. Just as it started, they had to stop the show due to technical difficulties. I forgot to mention that this same thing happened during the 1st big show. Hmmmmmmmmm....... However, once the show started it was wonderful!

NaNa decided that she was boycotting the casino on the ship since she wasn't winning, so we did other things after the show.

Next installment: St. Kitts - a piece of paradise!

[spring]

We went to St. Kitts for our honeymoon. Did you see the sleeping policemen when you were there? Can't wait to hear more of your impressions of the island and what you may have seen.

Missymouse, this one's for you!

Friday, March 7th: St Kitts

I was particularly excited about going to St Kitts as it is the only port on our itinerary that I never have been to. I wasn't disappointed! The distance from Antigua to St Kitts is not far, so it seemed like our ship was at a crawl all night. We arrived early in the morning and were lucky to be the only ship in port. We actually booked a panoramic tour through the cruiseline and were looking forward to it. Our tour started at 10:30AM, but by 8:30AM, we were off the ship and wandering around. Nothing much was open at this time except for one souvenir shop (yep, NaNa raced in!) As we walked through the first block of town, we found a series of vendor stalls tucked in the back. This is where we ended up doing much of our shopping. The vendors were just setting up when we arrived and were eager for our business. I saw a necklace that I liked made from volcanic beads and cats-eye that I liked. However, I wanted it with white stones instead of the blue that were in it. Before I knew it, the young girl strung a necklace to please my preferences. It was really cheap, too. I saw a couple of sundresses for my granddaughters and grabbed them, too. She gave me a "bulk" discount. Since NaNa was celebrating her 80th birthday, she ended up with two necklaces for the price of one, plus a kiss on the cheek from another vendor. She was quite pleased with her bargain. As we headed back to the ship to deposit our treasures, we passed another vendor with a small monkey and a baby monkey clinging to it's mother. He tried to thrust them in my arms so he could get money for a picture. I had no idea whether the monkeys ever had shots, so I refused to go near them. However, they were so darn cute! He even had the baby in a mini diaper. After a quick trip onto the ship, we headed out to the meeting place for the tour. We were put in a van with 5 other people and set out for a scenic tour. We explored both the caribbean side, went to a botanical garden/old sugar mill, then went to the Atlantic side of the Island. Again, I LOVED the Atlantic Ocean side of the island. At one high vantage point, we looked over a beautiful beach with condos going up in the hillside. What I wouldn't have done to own a piece of this beautiful island! Right in the middle of this beautiful area was a Marriott. I know what hotel I'd like to stay at if I ever came for a week!

I have pictures of most of the islands I've reviewed. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to load them from photobucket yet. Perhaps my daughter can help me in a week or two.

After our splendid tour, we ate lunch on the ship (big surprise) then went out into town again (now that the stores were open). We grabbed some more souvenirs and went back to see the monkeys from a distance. We also found an internet cafe at 10 cents a minute. This was great as the ship charges 75 cents a minute. It was back to the ship after that, with our usual dinner and show routine later on.

Last installment: St. Maarten

[sunshinecindy]

Oh, I so want to go to St Kitts. We have friends there and they keep asking us to go back with them. Said we can even stay at their relatives house. Went to anguilla with one of them a couple years ago and its so cool to go with a local. Everyone knew everyone there...except us, we sort of stood out.

[spring]

Oh, I so want to go to St Kitts. We have friends there and they keep asking us to go back with them. Said we can even stay at their relatives house. Went to anguilla with one of them a couple years ago and its so cool to go with a local. Everyone knew everyone there...except us, we sort of stood out.

St Kitts is so gorgeous, I'd definitely go if I were you! The temp was around 82 degrees, but there was a moderate warm breeze blowing. The locals said the wind is normal for Feb and March. They did mention it gets very HOT starting in April or May and there is no wind then at all. I'd pick your times carefully, but since you are already used to the heat, perhaps it's not that important.

[spring]

Okay, here's our last port of call, St Maarten, Saturday, March 8th:

Today we pulled into this jewel of the caribbean and found ourselves to be the only ship in port. Whooohooo! However, this was a new change to the itinerary for our ship. Being a Saturday, I guess there is not always a cruise ship in port, so some of the shops and vendors were shut. I noticed within an hour that there was a scramble to open the shops. Chaching!

We got off the boat early, then walked up the pier to catch a water taxi into town. It's $4 one way, or you can buy a $6 unlimited r/t bracelet at this location only. After standing in a line of about 10 people for 15 minutes, we found out that there had been a party amongst some of the water taxi people the night before. Although the ticket/wristband sellers were there, the person responsible for opening up the office was not. Therefore, we couldn't get wristbands. The water taxi was waiting and waiting with no passengers. Finally, the wristband sellers told us to get on the boat as we would get a free ride over due to their boss not showing up. We climbed on board, but then one of the guys on the ship was insisting we pay $4 for the trip, then $4 for the trip back. He didn't sell wristbands and they could only be purchased in that location. He told us when we got back, we could purchase our wristbands for the unlimited rides for $6. Okay, so $4 + $4 + $6 did't make sense to any of us. We tried explaining it to him and agreed to pay $6 on our way back, but he was not listening. Finally we just flat out told him we were not paying until on our way back. As we got off the boat, he told us all not to bother coming back on the water taxi. We would have to take a van to get back to the boat ($3 each way). We told him fine and trotted off.

The town was pretty much still closed up, so NaNa wanted to try her luck in a casino. The first one I took her to was dingy and had really old slot machines. We didn't stay long. We walked down the street and found a much nicer, clean casino. I just watched as I was tired of donating money. NaNa broke about even. By the time she was done, all the stores were opening, so we again hit every tacky souvenir shop in town. I bypassed all the jewelry shops as I didn't want any more jewelry. Just as an aside, everyone talks up St. Thomas as a great place to buy jewelry. I personally think the deals are MUCH better in St Maarten.

After buying tacky souvenirs, hot sauce and tapestry table runners made in Belgium for our two grown DD's, we negotiated for a taxi back to the pier. Of course we had to go onto the ship for lunch. Couldn't spoil THAT pattern. After lunch, we got off the ship and shopped in the stalls right at the end of the pier. I'm not sure we bought anything there, but it was fun looking.

We stayed on the Dutch side of St Maarten/St Martin the whole time. I've been to the French side. There's a lot of high price stores there and it's pretty, but I prefer the charm of the Dutch side.

Then it was back to the ship and GoodBye St Maarten and goodbye to our last port of the cruise. Our ship sailed while we were at the "Last Supper."
This night we attempted to view our photos taken by the ship's photographers during the week of the cruise. The ship was spacious, but for some reason, the areas where the photos were exhibited were much too narrow. When you have a passenger list of 3500 people trying to view photos in such a small area - well, you get the idea. We didn't have too much luck at finding things and finally gave up. We decided to go to the show - an Illusionist, plus the ship's singers and dancers. The band started playing and the curtain went up and then.........for the 3rd time in a week they had technical difficulties and had to delay the start of the show. We waited about 15 minutes and the issues were still not resolved. We finally got up and left. NaNa wasn't too thrilled with the idea of an Illusionist anyway, so why spend our last night there? We did go to a towel folding class and I learned how to make an elephant out of a bath towel and hand towel. It was really cute, but I'm not sure I remember how to do it. We then went back to the cabins to finish packing and putting our suitcases out in the hall for disembarkation.

Then it was back to wandering around the ship from one activity to another before we finally went to bed.

Disembarkation, March 9th:

The ship arrived in San Juan by 6AM. I was awakened by the vibration of the motors as we pulled into dock. We went out on our patio to watch (I'm sure the Captain REALLY needed our help), then got dressed and went topside for coffee. Eventually we had both eyes open, collected NaNa and went to breakfast - wouldn't want to skip a meal, after all!!! We all retired to my cabin after breakfast and watched satellite TV, made phone calls (free with my cell phone from San Juan), and watched the goings-on from the balcony. At 9AM, we left the cabin to go to a lounge to await disembarkation. We had number 8 our of 32. Even so, we didn't get called until 10:15AM, then were put in the Theater. They had funny clips running in there, a lot like America's Funniest Home Videos, so the time went by quickly. We finally got off at 11AM. NaNa's flight was at 4:30PM and ours was 6:15PM, so we weren't in any hurry. We got down to customs and were in line for around 20 more minutes, then were ushered into a large hall where all the non-carryon luggage was arranged by numbers. We quickly found #8, a porter grabbed our luggage, and we followed him to yet another customs agent. She gave a perfunctory nod and we were on our way. The porter had 3 bags, and when we gave him what we though was a generous $8, he informed us that he charged $10 per family. We were too stunned to argue at that point. Anyway, he DID find us a taxi right away, and off to the airport we went. NaNa was flying USAir and were flying American, so we had the driver drop us off at the USAir terminal. NaNa got in a huge line that wrapped around the terminal. They had the kiosk check-ins positioned so that you had to stand in this huge line whether or not you were using the kiosk. After 45 minutes in line, and with another 1/2 hour to go, a USAir agent came around (not for the first time), relooked at NaNa's ticket, and told her to get out of the line. He didn't want her to check in yet as her flight left in 4 hours. She tried to reason with him, but he was obnoxious. We got out of line, went to the American terminal, used the kiosk to check in and check two bags, and we were done! The funny thing was, our flight wasn't leaving for 5 3/4 hours!

NaNa was very upset by now, so we took her to lunch, then to another tacky souvenir shop to get snacks for the plane. It still was too early to go back to check her in, so I took her back to the casino. In a short time, she had won over $50. She was no longer upset! We then took her back to a much shorter line and I checked her in via the kiosk. Then we nosed around until it was time for our planes. We watched NaNa off through security and, wouldn't you know, her carryon bag of tacky souvenirs got searched! For whatever reason, she ALWAYS gets searched at airports. There must be something fishy about white haired 80 year old ladies that I don't know! She found her gate without problems and called me to let me know she'd be boarding soon.

We went to the American Airlines terminal and went through security. I had forgotten I had put hot sauce in my carry on, and yes, it was more than 3 ounces. Luckily, the TSA agent didn't like hot sauce and was insistent on me checking the carry on and even personally showed me the way to go back to do it. What a nice man!

Finally, we got to our gate and boarded ontime. While I was getting onboard, my DD called me to let me know that NaNa's plane was boarded, but delayed. NaNa then called me and said a gauge was broken on the plane and they had to wait for a replacement to come. To make a long story short, she got off the ground 2 hours late. We actually landed before her.
NaNa got off the plane at Philly, took a wrong turn, tried to go back, but the security guard wouldn't let her. She was upset and called me (like I could do anything about it in Hartford). Just then my brother found her, so alls well that ends well!

Hope I didn't bore all of you. I'll try to get pictures downloaded eventually, but I'm going to need DD's help for that. We're all kind of booked up this weekend for my oldest Granddaughter's birthday bash. Happy 8th birthday, Madeline. She was actually born today, March 13th, 2000.